On Saturday May 20, Modern Richmond is excited to offer two small group tours of the Tides Inn Shoreline Restoration project in Irvington, Virginia at 480 King Carter Drive. The tours, which will depart from the resort's main entry, will be led by the project's landscape architects, Jill Nolt and Eugene Ryang, principals with waterstreet studio.
Two tour times are available, one will start promptly at 11:00 am and the other at 2:00 pm. Attendees should wear shoes comfortable enough to spend an hour walking through the project and directly experiencing the stabilized and revitalized waterfront.
The living shoreline project at the Tides Inn, a historic resort in Irvington, VA, illuminates how thoughtful restoration efforts can rebuild local ecologies and natural systems for estuarine environments that have been degraded from development in the tidal creeks around the Chesapeake Bay. The design reimagines the Inn’s relationship with the water’s edge, transforming approximately 1,300 linear feet of eroding and invasive plant-infested tidal creek margins into a stabilized, vibrant living shoreline with native species.
The project also repositions the shoreline as the focus of guest/visitor experience and enrichment. Visitors are encouraged to observe and explore innovative shoreline reestablishment strategies along both upland walks overlooking the water and a quarter-mile curvilinear accessible wharf-walk that wraps around the rehabilitated waterfront edge. The wharf-walk allows for a variety of water-dependent recreational opportunities while also providing an immersive educational experience of this unique tidal creek landscape and ecology.
The waterfront project includes the following features: 18,000 square feet of new living shoreline, 1,300 linear feet of new wharf along the water's edge, 150 linear feet of oyster reef, 10,600 new shoreline plants and 10,900 new upland plants, 42 new trees, and preservation of 30 old growth trees.
Parking for the tour is available at the Tides Inn, where attendees may wish to reserve a room or a table for lunch or supper after the day's tours.
Photograph of the project by Kate Thompson
Tours will be led by the project’s landscape architects: Jill Nolt and Eugene Ryang.
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